There are plen­ty of rea­sons peo­ple want to acquire their own land, from busi­ness­es build­ing a new dis­tri­b­u­tion base to a fam­i­ly build­ing their own dream home. While the idea of land acqui­si­tion may seem sim­ple, it’s always best keep in con­tact with your Solic­i­tor so they can offer expert advice through­out the process.

Iden­ti­fy Your Requirements

Before you start search­ing for your very own plot of land, you need to decide on a project plan. It’s all well and good pur­chas­ing a plot in your per­fect loca­tion to devel­op but if you can’t build there, you’ll be left with a love­ly look­ing plot of land.

When decid­ing on a plot of land, you should consider:

  • Pur­pose – What do you want the land for? Are you build­ing your own house? Once this has been iden­ti­fied, you need to check if the land can be used for your intend­ed purpose.
  • Cost – How much will the land cost? By mak­ing rough esti­mates you can then start to esti­mate the extra costs on top of this. 
  • Re-Sale – Whether you’re plan­ning on mov­ing in to a house you build your­self, or you intend to sell it as soon as your devel­op­ment is com­plete, you need to look into the re-sale val­ue of the land.

Set Your Budget

Once you’ve iden­ti­fied your require­ments, it’s time to plan a bud­get. The bud­get shouldn’t just cov­er the cost of land because you need the fac­tor in the cost of the entire project from sur­vey­or fees to materials.

Find the Right Plot

The next step is to find the per­fect plot for your plans. While it used to be as easy as find­ing a pre­ferred spot and claim­ing it with your flag, that’s no longer the case.

Brown and green are the two most com­mon clas­si­fi­ca­tions for land that can be devel­oped. With the cur­rent hous­ing short­age, the gov­ern­ment is look­ing to build less on Green­field and more on Brown­field land. The clas­si­fi­ca­tions are as follows:

  • Brown­field land — Land pre­vi­ous­ly used for indus­tri­al or com­mer­cial purposes.
  • Green­field land – Unde­vel­oped land which could have been used for agri­cul­ture, land­scape design or left to grow naturally.

If the plots avail­able for sale don’t inter­est you, there are oth­er ways to obtain plots of land that may already be owned but unused:

  • Auc­tions – There are entire auc­tions ded­i­cat­ed to the sale of land. How­ev­er any land bought here is sold on an ​‘as seen’ basis and there is lit­tle time to research the plot due to the fast paced nature of auctions.
  • Local author­i­ties – If a local author­i­ty needs to raise mon­ey then they may be will­ing to part with some of the land they own.
  • Util­i­ty com­pa­nies – Util­i­ty com­pa­nies pro­vide Britain with gas, water and elec­tric­i­ty, they also have a sur­plus of land that they might part with if the right offer is made.

Check for Plan­ning Permission

When land is sold, it falls with­in one of three categories:

  • No plan­ning permission
  • Out­line plan­ning permission
  • Plan­ning per­mis­sion has been grant­ed for a set of plans which have been reviewed and approved.

It’s high­ly advis­able that you ask your solic­i­tor to inves­ti­gate the land and find out which cat­e­go­ry your plot falls under. Through research, your solic­i­tor will be able to uncov­er any restric­tive laws that would pre­vent you from devel­op­ing the land.

Sur­vey the Land

You’ve iden­ti­fied the pock­et of land you want and your instincts are telling you to snap it up before you lose the oppor­tu­ni­ty. You need wait because you only know the basics about this plot and the land could be struc­tural­ly unsound.

It’s impor­tant to have an area sur­veyed before you com­mit to a pur­chase and to get a real insight into the land, you should have a qual­i­fied land sur­vey­or car­ry it out. A pro­fes­sion­al will give you a detailed report on the land which will tell you if it’s suit­able for devel­op­ment or not.

Purchase

Once you’ve found a plot of land that suits your needs and you’ve ensured that you can use it for your devel­op­ment, then it’s the right time to con­sult with your Solic­i­tor to start the legal pro­ceed­ings that accom­pa­ny the acqui­si­tion of land.

To see how we can help to you acquire devel­op­ment land or prop­er­ty, please get in touch with Rick Bar­row on 01625 523988 or mail@​JBGass.​com